Sound works

Presentation of sound works by participating artists Ailís Ní Ríain (IE), Carol Anne Connolly (IE), David Stalling (IE), Kennedy Browne (IE), Kevin Barry (IE), Magz Hall (UK) and Robertina Šebjanič (SI).

This captivating multi-media monologue by acclaimed author Kevin Barry sounds a tragi-comic tone as a melancholy lighthouse keeper dreams of a different life and of distant lands … and of a woman in Ennistymon. With a sound design by Foley artist Jean McGrath and film by Louise Manifold.

A meditation on time spent at sea. Composer Ailís Ní Ríain’s atmospheric audio-visual work integrates one long take of the porthole in her cabin on the RV Celtic Explorer with a composition of hummed song and sounds created inside a grand piano.

Answering Echoes is informed by time spent in the Mid Atlantic on a Cold Water Coral Survey led by the School of BEES (Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences) at University College Cork. Working with INFOMAR at the Marine Institute, visual artist Carol Anne Connolly has drawn on visual information of the ocean landscape that was originally created with multi-beam acoustic technology to map the sea bed. This visual information has been used to compose sonic portrayals of the ocean landscape using photoelectronic synthesisers, a technology that turns image into sound. Inspired by the ANS synthesiser created by Russian engineer Evgeny Murzin in 1937.

Kennedy Browne’s video work stages an encounter between a destroyed US military vessel, washed up on Inis Oírr, with Sean-nós improvisation in music and dance, performed by brothers Colm and Gearóid Devane.

An immersive multichannel sound installation based on material and data gathered during the artist’s residency aboard the Celtic Explorer SEA-SEIS (Structure, Evolution And Seismicity of the Irish offshore) Survey 2018.

The survey deployed 18 seismometers in the Atlatic to monitor tsunami activity.

A radiophonic poem draws on my own enforced isolation; first through Brexit, and then in lockdown. In the spirit of transnationalism, it sends a broadcast from the phantom though once mapped island of Hy-Brasil off the Irish coast, relaying a message of peace, hope and unity across all borders.

Slovenian artist Robertina Šebjanič weaves together mythologies and sciences, humans and non-humans, to speak of our ability to address challenges in the Anthropocene. Stories unfold, carried by the migratory basking shark (Cetorhinus maximus) and the flame shell (Limaria hians), a small species endemic to the North Atlantic waters. Robertina had the opportunity to experience both sea creatures during her residency on the RV Celtic Explorer. The work will be an immersive audio installation where the sound story is presented to the public with Sean-nós style of singing, intertwined with the narration of the storyteller and filed ambiental sound recordings of the Atlantic Ocean, both above and under water, obtained during the research residency at RV Celtic Explorer.